The high season of Kenya’s political discourse is already rising to a crescendo. The campaigns are on. Aspirants of various political positions are taking to the podiums across the country to articulate their views. Increasingly, speakers are relying on imagery as part of their rhetorical arsenal.

It appears the imagery that most are finding illustrative and is gaining currency is sexual. In one, a female speaker appealed to male bedroom virility as a rhetorical tactic to justify the political decisions that the electorate needs to make.

Elsewhere, a male politician referenced the body curves of a female colleague as indicative of the female politician’s suitability to serve. At yet another platform, a female politician dismisses a man as too old, so to speak, to be of sexual use. It is a near-age shaming of the rallygoer, vilified for being too old to satisfy the female politico, that smacks of an unacceptable rhetorical device.

The same applies to some of the dance moves that now dot the creative art space. They depart from the known Kenyan social norm even when granted creative licence.

In all these scenarios and more, both the politicians and the audience lap up the moment with gleeful delight. The kind of grammar on display at these rallies will not pass master the watershed hours set out in our broadcasting policy, which is guided by the desire to protect the most vulnerable members of society.

These political rallies are public events. Among the participants are young and old, daughters-in-law and their fathers-in-law, sons-in-law and their mothers-in-law and so on. During weekdays, truant kids sneaking away from school find their way to the rallies and consider such rhetoric a handsome pay for their truancy.

But that is not the end of the challenge, this reductionist approach to sexual objectification of the body, both male and female and in public, and a seeming public approval transitions this language from the private to the public, from the taboo to the ordinary, in a sense serving as a cultural transition.

But should that be the case? In the drafting of the Constitution, considerable emphasis was placed on cultural preservation and observance, with an entire article dedicated to the topic, accompanied by a commission to enforce it.

We have been in some of these spaces before. Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, in his speeches, sometimes veered into this protected speech space. But Mzee had a licence by virtue of his age. Some of Raila Odinga’s utterances in his mother tongue would be deeply offensive if translated into English. However, again, Raila appears to have earned a certain linguistic licence. Just because Raila or Mzee Kenyatta used the language is no licence for younger individuals to assume that power and wealth have earned them these liberties.

Unlike other acts by politicians that draw public opprobrium, this sexualised speech appears to pass with a slap on the hand. Guardians of morality, such as religious organisations, councils of elders, and institutions guaranteeing good behaviour, appear to be less bothered.

The only organisations that sometimes appear disturbed by this language are those related to human rights, whose rationale for the agitation is legal rather than moral. However, this slip in language is part of our slippery slope, where the taboo is normalised and evil is sanitised.

The writer is the Dean of Daystar University’s School of Communication